Why Older Adults Are Happier

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WASHINGTON — People tend to get happier as they age, and a new
study could explain why: Older adults may be better able to deal
with negative emotions like anger and anxiety.

In the study, older adults were less likely than younger adults
to feel angry and anxious in their everyday lives, as well as
when they were asked to perform a stressful task.

In addition, older adults scored higher on a test designed to
measure how well participants accept their negative emotions. The
researchers call this trait "acceptance," or a tendency to be in
touch with rather than avoid negative emotions.

Younger people could take advantage of the findings to experience
more happiness well before they grow old, said study researcher
Iris Mauss, a psychologist and assistant professor at the
University of California, Berkeley.

"Acceptance is good for anyone," Mauss said. "It just seems to be
the case that older people use it more than younger people.
They're sort of wise to it."

The study involved 340 adults ages 21 to 73 who rated their anger
and
anxiety levels each day over a two-week period, and before
and after they were required to give an on-camera speech with
little time to prepare.

Participants also rated statements to gauge their level of
emotional acceptance, such as "I tell myself I shouldn't be
feeling the way that I'm feeling," and "I think some of my
emotions are bad or inappropriate and I shouldn't feel them."
(Participants who said that these statements were "very often
true" would be considered to have lower acceptance.)

The researchers don't know why the ability to accept negative
emotions gets better with age. But one idea is that, as people
grow old, they experience more life events that are out of their
control, such as disease and the death of loved ones. With more
of these life experiences, people may learn that it is futile to
try to control such events, and that there are things that they
need to accept, Mauss said.

The study was presented here at the annual meeting of the
Association for Psychological Science on May 24. It was published
in the April issue of the Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology.